· Lambretta Scooters
· Vespa Restoration
· Vespa Scooters
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Because of their popularity, the Vespa scooter is often restored to
its original beauty. For example, one man bought his first Vespa
scooter back in the 1980s for a mere $60. Unfortunately, the scooter
was covered with several coats of house paint, had gaudy stickers all
over, the kick-start quadrant was broken, there were no emblems or
trim, the electrical systems did not work, and so on. To say the
least, the Vespa scooter left much to be desired.
However, a Vespa is easy to fall in love with, even when it does not
look like much. For over eight years, this man put tremendous time
and effort into restoring his scooter. In fact, many of his friends
felt he also spent too much money. However, after a beautiful
restoration job, this man and his scooter went around the world, seeing
new places, making new friends, and having a wonderful time. He
realized after his labors that the people from Piaggio made an
incredible scooter.
Although this man had no idea where to start with the restoration of
his Vespa scooter, he relied on some local talent for guidance. Their
expertise and assistance helped turn an old beaten down Vespa to a
brilliant looking scooter. The Vespa scooter will be stripped down to
the metal frame, realigned, and then you should use a 4 + 1 metallic,
step process, which would include rust preventative, primer, the main
color of paint, and then a finishing clear coat. The best paint to use
is Japanese Kansai paint.
Once that portion is complete, you will then re-wire and re-cable the
scooter. Be sure before you assembly the engine that it is stripped,
rebuilt, and tested with a burn. As you can imagine, the restoration
includes a lot of work. You will be working on or looking for numerous
items, just a few that include a cylinder, piston rings, fuel tap
assembly, flywheel cover, clutch plates and drum, brake shoes,
generator coil, points, exhaust system, gear selector, leg fender
shield trim, and seals and gaskets. Once you have completed the
restoration of your Vespa scooter, you will be so proud of the job and
enjoy riding your Vespa even more.
If you use rebuilt parts, which will be your only choice on occasion,
you need each part to be sandblasted, cleaned, and then maintained in
a clean environment during the rebuild process. For the crankshaft
case, transmission gears, cylinder head, steering lock, flywheel, and
brake drums, try to use only top quality. You will find that in most
Vespa scooter restorations, on average, 95% of the parts will need
replacing. If you are considering the restoration of a Vespa, your goal
will be to bring the scooter's original specifications back in line,
which will require that you only the best parts and paint available.
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